William of Wrotham
William of Wrotham was a medieval English royal administrator and clergyman. He served King John of England as an administrator of ecclesiastical lands and a collector of taxes. His main administrative work was naval. He was in charge of the royal fleet in the south of England in 1205, and was one of those responsible for the development of Portsmouth as a naval dockyard.
About William of Wrotham in brief
William of Wrotham was a medieval English royal administrator and clergyman. He served King John of England as an administrator of ecclesiastical lands and a collector of taxes. His main administrative work was naval. He was in charge of the royal fleet in the south of England in 1205, and was one of those responsible for the development of Portsmouth as a naval dockyard. He continued to be involved in naval matters until 1214 or later, but by 1215 he had joined the First Barons’ War against John. After John’s death in 1216, William returned to the royalist cause. He probably died in late 1217. He is said to have had a “special responsibility for ports, customs, and the navy”, and was a forerunner of the office of First Lord of the Admiralty. Little is known of William’s background or family, except that his father Godwin held land in Shipbourne, near W Rotham in Kent, perhaps as a vassal of the Archbishops of Canterbury. He may have owed his advancement in royal service to Geoffrey fitzPeter, a royal judge.
In 1197, Hubert Walter, who was Archbishop of Canterbury and Justiciar, appointed William to the administration of the Royal stannaries, or tin mines, and in 1198 William was placed in charge. In 1200 he was recorded as a receiver of the carucage, a tax on land, in the Pipe roll; whether this meant that he was a local or national collector of the tax is unclear. In 1207 he was also placed in. charge of a vacant ecclesiastical office for the collection of a thirteenth-century tax, and performed this work for the king. In July 1205 he was given custody of one of three dies for the mints at Chicheichester; the king gave William’s custody to Simon of Wells, the Bishop of Chichester. He witnessed the election of Jocelin of Wells as the new bishop of the diocese of Bath. By 1204, William was Archdeacon of Taunton in the Diocese of Bath, and witnessed the elections of Jocelyne de Cornhill as bishop of Taunton. He claimed to have held the prebend of St Decumans in Bath Cathedral by 9 May 1204.
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